Revisit the trees on the summit of Saleve.--Pas
d’Echelle.--Moneti.--Bird’s-eye prospects.--Alpine
flowers.--Extensive view from the summit of Saleve.--Youthful
enthusiasm.--Sad realities.
I had long wished to revisit the holt of trees so conspicuous on the
summit of Saleve, and set forth this morning to accomplish that purpose.
Brandoin an artist, once the delight of our travelling lords and ladies,
accompanied me. We rode pleasantly and sketchingly along through Carouge
to the base of the mountain, taking views every now and then of
picturesque stumps and cottages.
At length, after a good deal of lackadaisical loitering on the banks of
the Arve, we reached a sort of goats’ path, leading to some steps cut
in the rock, and justly called the Pas d’Echelle. I need not say we were
obliged to dismount and toil up this ladder, beyond which rise steeps of
verdure shaded by walnuts.
These brought us to Moneti, a rude straggling village, with its church
tower embosomed in gigantic limes. We availed ourselves of their deep
cool shade to dine as comfortably as a whole posse of withered hags, who
seemed to have been just alighted from their broomsticks, would allow
us.
About half past three, a sledge drawn by four oxen was got ready to drag
us up to the holt of trees, the goal to which we were tending:
stretching ourselves on the straw spread over our vehicle, we set off
along a rugged path, conducted aslant the steep slope of the mountain,
vast prospects opening as we ascended; to our right the crags of the
little Saleve--the variegated plains of Gex and Chablais, separated by
the lake; below, Moneti, almost concealed in wood; behind, the mole,
lifting up its pyramidical summit amidst the wild amphitheatre of
glaciers, which lay this evening in dismal shadow, the sun being
overcast, the Jura half lost in rainy mists, and a heavy storm
darkening the Fort de l’Ecluse. Except a sickly gleam cast on the snows
of the Buet, not a ray of sunshine enlivened our landscape.
This sorrowful colouring agreed but too well with the dejection of my
spirits. I suffered melancholy recollections to take full possession of
me, and glancing my eyes over the vast map below, sought out those spots
where I had lived so happy with my lovely Margaret. On them did I
eagerly gaze--absorbed in the consciousness of a fatal, irreparable
loss, I little noticed the transports expressed by my companion at the
grand effects of light and shade, which obeyed the movements of the
clouds; nor was I more attentive to the route of our oxen, which,
perfectly familiarized with precipices, preferred their edge to the bank
on the other side, and by this choice gave us an opportunity of looking
down more than a thousand feet perpendicularly on the wild shrubberies
and shattered rocks deep below, at the base of the mountain. In general
I shrink back from such bird’s-eye prospects with my head in a whirl,
and yet, by a most unaccountable fascination, feel a feverish impulse
to throw myself into the very gulph I abhor; but to-day I lay in passive
indifference, listlessly extended on our moving bed.
Its progress being extremely deliberate, we had leisure to observe, as
we crept along, a profusion of Alpine flowers; but none of those
gorgeous insects mentioned by Saussure as abounding on Saleve were
fluttering about them. This was no favourable day for butterfly
excursions; the flowers laden with heavy drops, the forerunners of still
heavier rain, hung down their heads. We passed several chalets, formed
of mud and stone, instead of the neat timber, with which those on the
Swiss mountains are constructed. Meagre peasants, whose sallow
countenances looked quite of a piece with the sandy hue of their
habitations, kept staring at us from crevices and hollow places: the
fresh roses of a garden are not more different from the rank weeds of an
unhealthy swamp, than these wretched objects from the ruddy inhabitants
of Switzerland.
My heart sank as we were driven alongside of one of these squalid
groups, huddled together under a blasted beech in expectation of a
storm. The wind drove the smoke and sparks of a fire just kindled at the
root of the tree, full in the face of an infant, whose mother had
abandoned it to implore our charity with outstretched withered hands.
The poor helpless being filled the air with waitings, and being tightly
swaddled lip in yellow rags, according to Savoyarde custom, exhibited an
appearance in form and colour not unlike that of an overgrown pumpkin
thrown on the ground out of the way. How should I have enjoyed setting
its limbs at liberty, and transporting it to the swelling bosom of a
Bernese peasant! such as I have seen in untaxed garments, red, blue and
green, with hair falling in braids mixed with flowers and silver
trinkets, hurrying along to some wake or wedding, with that firm step
and smiling hilarity which the consciousness of freedom inspires.
A few minutes dragging beyond the tree just mentioned, we reached the
bold verdant slopes of delicate short herbage which crown the crags of
the mountain. We now moved smoothly along the turf, brushing it with our
hands to extract its aromatic fragrance, and having no longer rough
stones to encounter, our conveyance became so agreeable that we
regretted our arrival before a chalet, under a clump of weather-beaten
beach. These are the identical trees, so far and widely discovered, on
the summit of Saleve, and the point to which we had been tending.
Seating ourselves on the very edge of a rocky cornice, we surveyed the
busy crowded territory of Geneva, the vast reach of the lake, its coast,
thickset with castles, towns, and villages, and the long line of the
Jura protecting these richly cultivated possessions. Turning round, we
traced the course of the Arve up to its awful sanctuary, the Alps of
Savoy, above which rose the Mont-Blanc in deadly paleness, backed by a
gloomy sky; nothing could form a stronger contrast to the populous and
fertile plains in front of the mountain than this chaos of snowy peaks
and melancholy deserts, the loftiest in the old world, held up in the
air, and beaten, in spite of summer, with wintry storms.
I know not how long we should have remained examining the prospect had
the weather been favourable, and had we enjoyed one of those serene
evenings to be expected in the month of July. Many such have I passed in
my careless childish days, stretched out on the brow of this very
mountain, contemplating the heavenly azure of the lake, the innumerable
windows of the villas below blazing in the setting sun, and the glaciers
suffused by its last ray with a blushing pink. How often, giving way to
youthful enthusiasm, have I peopled these singularly varied peaks with
gnomes and fairies, the distributors of gold and crystal to those who
adventurously scaled their lofty abode.
This evening my fancy was led to no such gay aërial excursions; sad
realities chained it to the earth, and to the scene before my eyes,
which, in lowering, sombre hue, corresponded with my interior gloom. A
rude blast driving us off the margin of the precipices, we returned to
the shelter of the beech. There we found some disappointed butterfly
catchers, probably of the watch-making tribe, and a silly boy gaping
after them with a lank net and empty boxes. This being Monday, I thought
the Saleve had been delivered from such intruders; but it seems that
the rage for natural history has so victoriously pervaded all ranks of
people in the republic, that almost every day in the week sends forth
some of its journeymen to ransack the neighbouring cliffs, and transfix
unhappy butterflies.
Silversmiths and toymen, possessed by the spirit of De Luc and De
Saussure’s lucubrations, throw away the light implements of their trade,
and sally forth with hammer and pickaxe to pound pebbles and knock at
the door of every mountain for information. Instead of furbishing up
teaspoons and sorting watch-chains, they talk of nothing but quartz and
feldspath. One flourishes away on the durability of granite, whilst
another treats calcareous rocks with contempt; but as human pleasures
are seldom perfect and permanent, acrimonious disputes too frequently
interrupt the calm of the philosophic excursion. Squabbles arise about
the genus of a coralite, or concerning that element which has borne the
greatest part in the convulsion of nature. The advocate of water too
often sneaks home to his wife with a tattered collar, whilst the
partisan of fire and volcanoes lies vanquished in a puddle, or winding
up the clue of his argument in a solitary ditch. I cannot help thinking
so diffused a taste for fossils and petrifactions of no very particular
benefit to the artisans of Geneva, and that watches would go as well,
though their makers were less enlightened.